


Gravity of Love

by Madophelia



Series: The Kismet Enigma [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Codes & Ciphers, Destiny, Fate, Government, Kismet Marks, M/M, Magical Realism, Mycroft IS the British Government, Original Character(s), Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Teenlock, Unilock, Victor Trevor - Freeform, alternative universe, basically mycroft was chosen from a very early age, creepy government men, mystrade, the non-mystrade relationship is only hinted at, to become the person he is now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:50:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4445948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madophelia/pseuds/Madophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow the trace for a new start.<br/>What you need and everything you'll feel<br/>Is just a question of the deal.<br/>In the eye of storm you'll see a lonely dove<br/>The experience of survival is the key<br/>To the gravity of love</p><p>Mycroft Holmes doesn't have time for a Kismet Mark, the fact that his soulmate's name is written on the inside of his wrist doesn't change the fact that he was chosen for his position at an early age. In fact, caring about it would be a distinct disadvantage.</p><p>A mystrade version, set in the same universe as <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1698287">Return to Innocence</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity of Love

Active Melanin was all very good. Triggered by the linguistic cortex, or whatever other madness they were spouting these days, it was all just scientific nonsense designed to further perpetuate the myth that human beings needed one another to survive.

There were new research proposals every year, more paperwork crossing his desk every day to be signed in triplicate. Grants and funding offered an adequate cover for the work he was really doing. 

The world seemed to run on it, to breathe the sigh of promise and inhale hope from the darkening of skin in the shape of letters. It wasn’t that Mycroft was against it, per se, it was just that he didn’t have time. That’s what he told himself. Whatever happened all those years ago, that was nothing. 

Mycroft poured himself a brandy, it was early in the day but with yet another tense situation in a foreign country needing his diplomatic attention recently, he’d had to employ a little leg work to rectify the situation. Consequently, he was a little ahead of his body clock. The spirit burned on the way down in a pleasant way and Mycroft relaxed in the high-backed chair of his private residence. 

He thought about reading the paper but promptly shrugged it off. Headlines had become more of a to-do list for him, each signifying something he’d been dealing with for a while, or else damage control that needed to be done later. 

Drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair, he wondered what he should do. His assistant was already out on a few errands and this was perhaps the first time in a few months Mycroft had to himself without the stress and worry of work nipping at his heels. He hated it. 

Boredom was a term used so much by his younger brother that Mycroft would never dream of using it in reference to himself. And yet, now, he was beginning to see Sherlock’s reasoning.

Mycroft’s phone vibrated on the glass side table. He tried to push down the relief he felt at it’s interruption, attempted to quell his wish for a military coup, and hid his disappointment at seeing his brother’s name on the caller ID. 

“Whatever it is Sherlock, it will have to wait.” He lied, so sue him, without the veil of a busy schedule Sherlock might rope him into some elaborate scheme and he’d never get any time off. Which was what he wanted. Right?

“DI Lestrade’s name is Greg.” 

Mycroft prided himself on the fact that even his breathing didn’t change. He’d like to give credit to his composure, to the steel trap that were his emotions, not letting anything escape. The truth was, it had been so long since he’d even entertained the possibility, Mycroft wasn’t even sure he had it in him to be shook by the news. 

“The same DI who fished you out of the gutter all those years ago?”

He said it to annoy Sherlock. There were few pleasures in life, but irritating his brother was definitely one of them. It went both ways, what else were brothers for? 

Keeping you sane, bringing you back from the brink. Those things, yes, but mainly for irritating and being irritated by at will. 

“I was not in the--” Sherlock sighed down the phone, “Anyway, that’s it.”

“Okay.” He filled his lungs with air, “Thank you.” 

As he let the breath escape him slowly, a steady stream of contemplation flowing from his lungs, Mycroft thought about being 20 years old. 

“You’ll know” he’d told his brother, you’ll know when you meet the one. It’s something you can’t mistake. 

He’d been mostly lying at the time, unable to share the truth of it with someone so young. Since then, he wasn’t sure. The way his brother looked at the soldier fellow was unnerving. It was almost difficult to watch sometimes, and so obvious that Mycroft had contemplated running invasive medical procedures on Watson’s brain to see whether he had some kind of impairment that prevented him from seeing it too. That, he had barely reasoned in the end, was ever so slightly an abuse of power.

His thumbed a text to Anthea, sent her on a delivery to Baker Street. It wasn’t compassion, he told himself, nor gratitude, he was just so sick of seeing it drag on so. 

Mainly, it was to distract himself. 

\------

_13 years old._

“Holmes, my lad, can you step into my office a moment?” 

Mycroft nodded, readjusted his blazer slightly, pulling the sleeve down over his wrist, a habit he’d picked up this last summer. 

“Holmes this is Trevor, he’s starting with us this term and I hoped you’d show him the ropes, get him acquainted with us here. We’ve put him in your dorm, and a few of your classes, hoped you might set him on the right track.” 

“The right track, sir?” 

“Oh you know,” his headmaster said, sitting at his desk and placing his glasses on his nose, “keep him out of mischief.”

Mycroft nodded again, unsure of exactly how he could do that. 

The boy was red cheeked and wind swept. The rebellion was threaded into his hair, pulled in all directions, messy like his shirttails. 

“So would you like a tour of the school?” Mycroft said begrudgingly. This was the type of thing you did, appeased the unwashed masses, this was how you reached the top. And Mycroft fully intended to reach the top. 

“Nah,” the boy said, “I don’t reckon I’ll be here long.” 

“No?” Mycroft readjusted his blazer again. It wouldn’t do, he’d have to find something to hold, something he could carry with him. 

The boy grinned at him, “Probably be expelled. Was from my last school.”

“You say that like you are proud.” 

They walked down the hall, perhaps Mycroft could swing by the football field, or the basketball courts, leave this ruffian with some of his own kind so he could continue to the library in peace. 

“It’s just the way it is.” He shrugged. 

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get along just fine, Thomas.” 

“It’s Trevor.” 

“What?” Mycroft said, passing his bag to his left hand and shaking his right to bring his cuff down lower. 

“My name. It’s Trevor. Gregory Trevor. Though, my mates call me Greg.” 

Mycroft’s head snapped up. His eyes squinted slightly, surveying the boy in front of him. “We go by surnames here,” he said quickly, “not firsts.” 

“I noticed,” Trevor laughed, “only, my surname’s like a first name too, it’s rotten.”

Mycroft didn’t answer, just nodded absent mindedly while gripping his cuff into his palm.

“Still, not as bad as my little brother. He’s five, Victor they called him. Can you imagine?” 

Another nod. 

“You were Holmes, right? Got a first name that goes with that?”

“Mycroft.” 

“Your parents are Kismet freaks.” Trevor laughed, “I’ve met a few kids that have had parents go slightly unusual, you know, so that people know it’s really you that’s written on ‘em, but I’ve never met a Mycroft.” 

“Well,” Mycroft said, trying to regain himself, “It is somewhat of a family name. Although, it did skip a few generations.” 

He’d never admit his parents had any motivations with regarding to his Christian name other than the familial connection. Any baring it had on Kismet marks was simply circumstantial. 

“Well, Mycroft,” Trevor said, “Where to?” 

“Football pitch?”

“Not really my thing.” 

“Well, don’t feel like you have to hang around with me,” Mycroft said, “If you don’t think you’ll be here long, perhaps you should get back to whatever activities it was that got you expelled from your last school.” 

“I doubt I’ll be able to get up to any of that here.” Trevor smirked. 

“Well, we are kind of strict here. Rules are harder to break I suppose, still, if you were really determined you could… what? what’s so funny?” 

“I mean, I couldn’t get into the same kind of trouble at this school. Wrong kind of students.” 

“Less rebellious than your last lot?” 

“Less female.” 

Mycroft quirked an eyebrow in confusion, but didn’t voice his question. 

“I got caught.” There was a paused, “You know… _caught._ ”

Mycroft still wasn’t sure, so he stayed quiet. 

“For god’s sake man, I hand my hand up a girls skirt in the ladies toilets and the teachers thought it was probably not the kind of behaviour they wanted to encourage at their school. Shipped me off to an all-boys boarding school in the hope that it would straighten me out. Well, you know what I mean.”

“I… Okay.” 

Trevor laughed. His laughed was filled with all kinds of things Mycroft had only ever read about. It told stories and jokes that he knew were more inappropriate than anything he was ever likely to be exposed to outside of this acquaintance. Despite himself, he almost wished Trevor wouldn’t find his own kind. It also got him thinking, about this last summer, about the things he’d found out, changes that had taken place, things he didn’t yet understand, things no one had explained to him. 

“Where were you off to?” 

“When?” 

“When old toad face called you into babysit me?” 

“ _Mr Toadle_ ” Mycroft corrected, “caught me on my way to library. I have some studying to do.” 

“Well, no harm in getting a head start on classes. Lead on, McDuff.” 

The Shakespeare caught him off guard, but Mycroft let the strange boy follow him anyway. He tried not to think about it as having anything to do with his wrist, but it was hot under his cuff and Mycroft was beginning to feel the sting of its obligation.

\------

He'd been young. Full of naivete and overexcitement. Thankfully, things he managed to leave behind him; as youth left him, as did those things. 

It had been that summer the marks had appeared. Unlike Sherlock years later, he hadn't tried to resist it straight away, had watched in fascination as the marks grew darker every day, revealing the name of the person he would be joined to forever should they ever meet. 

He hadn't gone in for the frame bracelet or adornments that young girls sometimes did, didn't want to draw focus and certainly endeavoured to hide it at every opportunity, but it intrigued him nonetheless. Curiosity, Mycroft had reasoned, was a viable excuse for spending time with the uncouth boy that shared his name with that written on his wrist. 

It hadn't ended well. Gregory Trevor, who never really went by that name anyway, did not turn out to be his soulmate. He'd ended up as something monumental, but not a soulmate. He'd never experienced the rush that Sherlock had upon meeting John, but he hadn't learned to expect it at that point. 

Now he knew. Not because he would ever discuss the delicacies of the situation with his brother, heaven forfend, but even the unobservant could see that Sherlock was changed irreparably after that meeting. 

Gregory Trevor, forever the joker, sometime Shakespeare quoter, and one-time heartbreaker, was the first person Mycroft ever let in, which is monumental in itself, but he was also the last. 

After that Mycroft had given up the attempt. Put it away, stopped fiddling with his sleeve, picked up an umbrella to steady his hand and got back on his fastrack to the top. 

He'd avoided the announcements, not because he want to, or because he went out of his way to organise it, but because around the time he found it, someone else found him. Shadowy people, who had apparently been following his progress with rapt attention.

They cleared up the necessity of any entanglements, stopped the announcements, prevented a search. It was better for them that way; him, without attachments, cut off. Caring was not an advantage, not in his profession. 

\------  
_14 years old_

They came for him at six. 

His alarm went off on the hour, piercing through his veil of sleep like an unwanted visitor. Funny, he didn’t remember setting it. He reached across to stop the wail and brushed a knuckle against heavy cream cardstock. 

It didn’t say who it was from, just the place. ‘Promptly’ it asked, and so he went. 

He’d put his uniform on, even though it was Saturday and that generally meant the boys could wear what they liked. He wasn’t too casual a dresser anyway, and probably could have worn any number of trousers and shirts already folded in his drawers but the invitation reeked of formality and he didn’t want to be caught off guard. 

There was much he could deduce from the card, word use, font, card type, a faint watermark of a lion and a horse surrounding a crown. Very faint, but it was there. 

“Mr Holmes,” they said when he arrived, “We’ve been expecting you.” 

It was all so cliché. The tall and short men in dark suits with plastic ear pieces, the vague outline of a holster under their arms. He wouldn’t have minded, may have been vaguely thrilled at the entire charade but it seemed everyone was taking it so seriously. 

“You realise,” one of them said, after Mycroft had decided that they were the real deal, based on a number of small details that could indicate little else, “That we’ve been tracking you. This is not just your test scores, or your academic performance Mr Holmes, this is your whole life.” 

“You make it sound as though I were being groomed for it.” Mycroft quipped. 

There was silence, and suddenly Mycroft took on the gravity of the situation. 

“Since birth.” They clairified. “Your mother’s theroms and proofs have long been integrated in some of our most classified operations and your birth was planned long ago.”

“You will soon have a very grace choice to make, Mr Holmes.” He said finally, after explaining it all, “To join us, to take on the responsibilities we have planned for you. Or to lose the opportunity for good.” 

“Right,” he breathed, “That’s… What will I do, exactly?” 

“That is down to you.” The other one said, “There are a few of you across the national that will be given this chance. Only a select few. Those that prove themselves, show the relevant sacrifice, will be afforded all the advantages and development opportunities at our disposal.”

“And those that don’t?” 

“Will still be given jobs, important work.” 

“But not as… important as those that do?” 

“As the _one_ that does.” 

Mycroft frowned for a moment, considered the possibilities. 

“You said sacrifices.” 

“Yes.”

“I’d like to negotiate the terms of them.” 

The two men looked at each other with a oddly satisfied glance before inviting him to continue. 

“I won’t give up my family. I’ve got a younger brother who, quite frankly, is becoming a handful and I think he’ll probably need my help.” 

“The sacrifices we are talking about are not of that nature. You’ll be afforded the comforts of the position. A good salary and protection from certain negative aspects of society in exchange for the particular skills you will learn as you go along.” 

“So, what then?” Mycroft said, “No dessert? Drinking, smoking, that kind of thing?” 

“What we ask,” the taller of the two men said, resting backward against his headmaster’s desk as though it wasn’t something you could get caned for. “Is that relationships outside your family are kept to a minimum. Political connections are fine, networking, colleagues that kind of thing, but romantic entanglements are… discouraged for at least the first decade of your training.” 

“You don’t mean sex.” Mycroft observed, “You mean Kismets.” 

The man nodded gravely. “No Kismet partnerships will be acknowledged for the first ten years, full focus must be given to training and acquiring the relevant skills for your profession. It’s a harsh world and we find that caring for another human being in the way that Kismet marks make you care is… not an advantage.” 

Mycroft contemplated the practicalities. Thought about rebellion-woven hair and secretive laughs and shook his head slightly to rid himself of it. 

“The unpredictable nature of a Kismet much be hard to police.” Mycroft insisted, “surely you can’t have your subjects avoid all parties sharing the name for that long a time? What if a mission or operation involves someone with that name, what then?” 

There was a flicker of surprise across the shorter man’s face. He was by the window, backlit with morning light but Mycroft saw it. 

“It happens.” They allowed, “but the mission is our only concern. A close watch is given to the matter and should the situation present itself, action will be taken accordingly. We only ask that it is never sought, no traditional announcement and search is made, and marks are hidden at all times.” 

“Why ten years?” 

“Because at that point, you’ll have either succeeded in reaching the position we have designed for you and no longer be distracted if the connection occurred, have failed earlier in the game and the distraction it would afford be of little to no importance, or be dead.”

“Right.” 

While Mycroft’s brain worked a hundred miles a minute to catalogue all of this new information, the two checked their watches and made a move to usher him out. 

“We’ll be in contact again Mr Holmes, in a few weeks. We will need your decision by then.” 

“Yes, yes I’ll… think about it.” 

There were handshakes and formal goodbyes and suddenly Mycroft was standing the school corridor, looking at the closed door of the headmaster’s office and wondering if that all really happened. 

“Who was that?” 

He appeared at his elbow. Tall, gangly, clothes never sitting straight, always skewed to the side on his angular frame. 

“No one, Trevor, leave me alone.” 

“Come on Holmes, confess.” Gregory Trevor flung an arm out across Mycroft’s chest, stopping him in his path.

His head was reeling, filled with the mysterious double talk of men in three piece suits that seemed to know his life’s story without even having met him before. They’d been watching him, following. 

“I can’t. It’s classified.” 

He grimaced. How many times would he have to say that now? How many times would he lie to a friend? 

“Fine, keep your secrets,” Trevor laughed.

Mycroft remembered when he’d thought Trevor’s laugh was the thing that held all the secrets, how wrong he’d been. It still did speak of things unknown, but Mycroft knew now it was his own questions he was hearing in it, the echo of things he wondered about Trevor, about himself. 

“Library?” Trevor asked. 

“You hate it.” 

“Not always.” 

“You only go when you think you have to,” Mycroft observed, “don’t worry about me. You can certainly go and do whatever you like.” 

“Fine, if that’s what you want.” 

“It’s what you want,” Mycroft corrected. His voice was pitched at a different frequency than he’d have liked. The men had come to him, dragged him out of bed at an ungodly hour and thrust so much into his head that now he’d lost the part of it that controlled his voice. 

“You can be such a freak sometimes Holmes.” 

Trevor left him after that. Crossed the grounds to find some other ruffians no doubt, perhaps to smoke behind the stables, that’s what they usually did.

He was right. Mycroft was a freak. Chosen by whoever to do whatever. He’d been waiting for it, expectant that he was destined for great things but he hadn’t expected it would take so much from him at the same time. He didn’t need it, exactly, he hadn’t been hoping anything, or become invested in any kind of future he could put his finger on but to know he’d never… well, it wasn’t to be helped. 

Weeks later, when laughter and rebellion were taken from him for good, they appeared in his peripheral vision while crossing the courtyard. Mycroft took cover from the rain in the back of their sleek, dark car and wondered only briefly whether he should have fought harder for any other kind of outcome to this whole mess.

He toyed with stepping out of the car, telling them he couldn’t live with the absence of that kind of hope, but in the end it was simple. There was never going to be any other answer, no other path he could follow, he’d been born for this. Mycroft took a breath, composed his breathing and steeled his face into the nonchalance he would so readily adopt for years to come, before accepting the job offer. 

\------

A few years later they appeared again, steered him to the right university, the right societal circles, the right job. A minor position within the British Government, and as far as anyone was concerned, his position had not much changed to this day. 

The same shadows had followed Sherlock for a time, he had it on good authority. But then, one can only glean so much intelligence from a person who insists on writing in code. 

Funny, Mycroft thought, that the one thing that might have prevented Sherlock from finding John at all, was the one thing that allowed him the freedom to do so. 

He was avoiding the situation. Reminiscing about the past was not going to help him deal with his current situation. 

It was jumping to conclusions, he reasoned, it would be too much of a coincidence if this Lestrade turned out to be the one. He'd been looking after Sherlock for years, steering him like a brother, like a father even, on occasion. Surely it was too much of a coincidence to assume that this protector could be Mycroft's kismet. One protector destined for another. A coincidence that the universe would surely never be lazy enough to commit. 

DI Lestrade. He had files somewhere, a full background check and probably a photo, he'd asked for the information when Sherlock had been escorted from his first crime scene. At the time, he’d been assured the Detective Inspector had no skeletons in his closet, or ulterior motives in helping his junkie brother, and had put the file away. Which meant it was right there, in his study. Slipped into the drawer of his filing cabinet, nestled between Lestings Estates and the Liverpool Operation. It would be so easy to get it, to look at that photo and test whether the Kismet mark worked that way. 

Mycroft didn’t find the file. Not because he was scared, he assured himself, but because although his ten-year enforcement has ended some time ago, Mycroft didn’t see a need for it. Instead, he poured himself another drink. 

It was unfortunate, for Mycroft’s resolve, that only that evening, Sherlock got himself wound up with Chinese gangsters.


End file.
